Pol Pot men say sorry for killing fields

Two leading architects of the Khmer Rouge mass slaughter in Cambodia have been welcomed back to Phnom Penh with a promise of amnesty, in spite of international calls for them to be put on trial.

Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea were greeted with smiles by the prime minister, Hun Sen, when they arrived from Pailin, a former rebel stronghold in western Cambodia.

The two gave a perfunctory apology for the killings that wiped out at least 1.5 million at a press conference yesterday.

'I would like to say sorry to the people. Please forget the past and please be sorry for me,' Khieu Samphan said, after declaring that his 'defection' marked the end of the Khmer Rouge.

Nuon Chea claimed that the deaths had occurred 'because we wanted to win the war', but insisted: 'We are sorry not only for the lives of the people, but also for the animals'.

Survivors of the 'killing fields' dismissed the apology and called for the perpetrators of the bloodbath to face justice.

'Sorry? I'd like to punch them both in the mouth if that's all they can say,' said Bun Sray, a 38-year-old civil servant. 'You know millions of lives, including 20 of my relatives, were lost in their regime... now I want to kill their wives and children and then I say I'm sorry.' Cambodians fear that many of the Khmer Rouge will regain influence in the army and government unless their leaders are put on trial.

Thomas Hammarberg, the UN Special Representative for Human Rights in Cambodia, said it would be 'extremely sad' if they escaped trial.

It was claimed that the two men had 'defected' after being held hostage by Ta Mok - known as the one-legged butcher - who is now the only remaining Khmer Rouge leader at large.

However they only arrived in Phnom Penh after Hun Sen promised them immunity, saying 'we should dig a hole and bury the past'.

The hole that most Cambodians who survived the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79) will remember is the one into which so many disappeared, after being bludgeoned and then buried alive in pits.

Khieu Samphan led the blackshirt troops who spearheaded the eviction of Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975 and became president and head of the armed forces. He was ranked equal to Pol Pot.

Nuon Chea controlled the Cambodian Communist Party, and was referred to as 'Brother Number Two' - second only to Pol Pot. Within weeks of the Khmer Rouge victory, he delivered a key speech ordering party officials to 'purify' the country - a codeword for killing anyone suspected of links with the former government.

Until recently Hun Sen supported demands for an international court to try Khmer Rouge war criminals. But yesterday he said a trial might cause a return to civil war.

Both his party and the main opposition party, Funcinpec, have enlisted support from defecting Khmer Rouge units.

Mr Hun Sen said that the two men wanted to rejoin society and should be welcomed not with handcuffs but with 'a bouquet of flowers'.

He then posed with the two 'defectors', with a large bowl of flowers in the foreground.